Sudan’s president has said that the conflict with Southern Sudan will not affect close relations between the two peoples.

It is all to play for after day one of the Women’s Interprovincials at Cork GC yesterday.

South Sudan raised the flag of its new nation for the first time today, as thousands of South Sudanese citizens and dozens of international dignitaries swarmed the new country capital of Juba to celebrate the country’s birth.

Rescue crews dug through piles of splintered houses and crushed cars in a search for victims of a half-mile-wide tornado that killed at least 116 people as it blasted a Missouri town off the map and tore through its hospital.

Women broke out in song and men wrapped themselves in flags as voters in Southern Sudan began casting ballots today in a week-long independence referendum likely to create the world’s newest nation about five years after the end of a brutal civil war.

STEVIE who?

BRIAN COWEN continued his summer in hiding yesterday – by addressing the Seanad.

Sudan’s president accused Britain, the US and Europe of interfering over crisis-torn Darfur, saying they were interested only in his country’s “riches and resources”.

US PRESIDENT George Bush’s public support has eroded to its lowest level yet, with the Iraq war dragging on, a top White House aide facing felony charges and the administration rushing to replace a failed Supreme Court nominee.

US President George Bush’s public support has eroded to its lowest level yet, with the Iraq war dragging on, a top White House aide facing felony charges and the administration rushing to replace a failed Supreme Court nominee.

THE scene is set for a battle between Leinster and Munster on Day 3 of the Ladies Interprovincials at the Royal Belfast golf course.

PUBLIC opinion favoured US President George W Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq about 2-to-1 soon after Saddam Hussein’s capture, but months of chaos and casualties have taken a heavy toll on public support for the war.

Sudanese government and rebel officials overcame a significant hurdle toward reaching a comprehensive peace agreement today by signing a protocol on how to share the nation’s wealth, one of the major issues in the 20 year civil war.